I spent yesterday at the University of Santo Tomas where I had the opportunity to visit the special collection of rare books at the UST Miguel de Benavides Library. I was thrilled to see the collection and observe where these antique books are restored, digitalized, and catalogued. Some of these precious books date to the 1500s.

(The UST was founded in 1611 and is one of the oldest existing universities in the Philippines and in Asia.)

The afternoon was spent at the Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies for the talk/dialogue, Some Words with the Wild Woman, featuring me. Some 500 students, professors, and guests were present for my presentation and a lively Question and Answer forum.

I have done many literary talks but this was special in the way the organizers extended loving care and respect to this event and to me. There was a thought-out and elegant progam with esteemed professors participating in giving the opening remarks, introduction, moderating the forum, and closing remarks. The event had a nice mix of elegant formality with levity. The kindness of their words about my work as a writer touched me deeply. Further, the students and audience were most attentive and had very interesting questions.

I want to give special thanks to Professors Ma. Ailil V. Alvarez, Augusto Antonio A. Aguila, Joyce Arriola, Ralph Semino Galan, Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo, Chuckberry Pascual, John Jack G. Wigley, for featuring me in Some Words with the Wild Woman, a literary program sponsored by the UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies in cooperation wih the UST Publishing House and UST Department of Literature.

Thanks also to Anna Nicolas for accompanying me to the Special Collections libary. And thanks to the artist who created the poster of Some Words with the Wild Woman, and to Gwenn Galvez for arranging for Anvil to make my books available to the audience.

Here are some pictures which I took, but I'll be adding more pictures so please visit this site again.

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard is the award-winning author of 10 books, including When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, The Newspaper Widow, Magdalena, Vigan and Other Stories, and Out of Cebu: Essays and Personal Prose. She edited four books, co-edited six books, and co-authored a novel, Angelica's Daughters.
Her work has been translated into Finnish and Turkish; and many of her stories and articles have been widely anthologized.
Cecilia has received many awards, including a California Arts Council Fellowship in Fiction, a Brody Arts Fund Award, a Special Recognition Award for her work dealing with Asian American youths, as well as a Certificate of Recognition from the California State Senate, 21st District, and the Outstanding Individual Award from her birth city, Cebu, Philippines. She has received several travel grants from the USIS.
She has lectured and performed at UCLA, USC, University of Connecticut, University of the Philippines, PEN, Shakespeare & Company in Paris, and many others. She teaches creative writing at the Writers Program at UCLA-Extension.

About Me

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Cecilia Manguerra Brainard is the award-winning author of 10 books, including When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, The Newspaper Widow, Magdalena, Vigan and Other Stories, and Out of Cebu: Essays and Personal Prose. She edited four books, co-edited six books, and co-authored a novel, Angelica's Daughters.
Her work has been translated into Finnish and Turkish; and many of her stories and articles have been widely anthologized.
Cecilia has received many awards, including a California Arts Council Fellowship in Fiction, a Brody Arts Fund Award, a Special Recognition Award for her work dealing with Asian American youths, as well as a Certificate of Recognition from the California State Senate, 21st District, and the Outstanding Individual Award from her birth city, Cebu, Philippines. She has received several travel grants from the USIS.
She has lectured and performed at UCLA, USC, University of Connecticut, University of the Philippines, PEN, Shakespeare & Company in Paris, and many others. She teaches creative writing at the Writers Program at UCLA-Extension.